This year for @wildbirdresearch also brought some unique firsts in the resident birds of #CostaRica as well. The biggest shock and surprise was the White-throated Magpie Jay, for jays this has to be the most fancy looking jay around, they’re also extremely smart and often traveling in large cooperative groups, meaning they have eluded us at all our research sites, until now. Hopefully will have more of a sample size in the future to learn about their molt. The other big surprise the Royal Flycatcher in the mangroves, this now is our second time getting a Royal Fly, they are not common on this side of Costa Rica, but might be overlooked. Others are some of our common residents we get and also another new species, Common Tody Flycatcher, ill talk more about some of the details of resident species research in the coming weeks on here and @wildbirdresearch, but for now enjoy a little highlight of White-throated Magpie Jay, Lessons Motmot, Royal Flycatcher, Common Tody Flycatcher, Long-tailed Manakin.

Pumpkin Patch.
The male Blackburnian Warbler (Setophaga fusca) is one of the most distinctive of the more than 50 wood warblers endemic to North America. Looking like he got caught with his head in the pumpkin seed jar, the blackburnian warbler in breeding plumage is a striking against the green of a forest canopy, where he spends the majority of his time foraging for insects. Lady blackburnians are slightly less striking, with muted colors. But they work together to lay ~4 brown-spotted eggs in mossy nests.
This past summer, these guys gave me a run for my money in a forest near Ithaca, NY. While I'm pretty comfortable with their spring songs, I definitely was NOT with their summer I'm-watching-my-nest calls. Took me quite some time to figure out that those calls (sounding to me like a DJ spinning and breaking Cerulean Warbler songs) were actually coming from Blackburnian throats!

American Tree Sparrow at Struble Lake, PA. Tree sparrows are winter visitors of open areas in southern Canada and the United States. In spring and summer they inhabit the tundra of Northern Canada and Alaska where they nest on the ground.
Obviously, American Tree Sparrows didn't get their name from the habitats where they live so why are they called Tree Sparrows? They were named because of their resemblance to the Eurasian Tree Sparrow!

Easy On The Eyes - 📸 & 📝 by @garyroche.photography
Osprey. Yes those are a pair of fish eyes 👀. He didn’t eat them, he dropped them to a waiting gull. I had to second guess what I was seeing through the viewfinder. Crazy.